The Roman Bridge between Dolni Vadin (Bulgaria) and Grojdibodu (Romania) presents all the available data on the Roman bridge over the Danube which connected Dacia and Moesia at this point. The toponyms Vadin and Grojdibodu themselves mean ‘ford’, a crossing over water, in this case over the Danube. There have been no archaeological excavations at the feet of the bridge but the author has been able to propose positioning, scale and full reconstruction on the basis of a survey of existing remains, known road alignments, old maps and drawings as well as comparison with better-known parallels. The book also includes a catalogue of small finds deriving from the area of the bridge.

This bridge has been ignored for centuries primarily due to the absence of any mention of it in ancient sources, literary or otherwise. It was probably eclipsed by the fame of the bridge from Drobeta, which was constructed by Emperor Trajan between the two Dacian wars, and by the bridge from Sucidava-Oescus which was built later, in the time of Emperor Constantine the Great. Additionally, the bridge is located in a rather obscure place, hardly accessible in the modern era. This work restores this river crossing to its proper significance.

About the Author
DOREL BONDOC is an expert archaeologist at the Museum of Oltenia, Craiova, Romania. He obtained a PhD in Ancient History (Roman Archaeology) from the University in Bucharest in 2004. Dorel is a director of the archaeological research projects on the sites of Cioroiu Nou, the fortress of Legio VII Claudia, and Racarii de Jos, the Roman auxiliary fort. Over time he has published many articles and studies, as well as several books.

London’s Waterfront 1100–1666: excavations in Thames Street, London, 1974–84 presents and celebrates the mile-long Thames Street in the City of London and the land south of it to the River Thames as an archaeological asset. The argument is based on the reporting of four excavations of 1974–84 by the Museum of London near the north end of London Bridge: Swan Lane, Seal House, New Fresh Wharf and Billingsgate Lorry Park. Here the findings of the period 1100–1666 are presented.

Buildings and property development on sixteen properties south of Thames Street, on land reclaimed in many stages since the opening of the 12th century, include part of the parish church of St Botolph Billingsgate. The many units of land reclamation are dated by dendrochronology, coins and documents. They have produced thousands of artefacts and several hundred kilos of native and foreign pottery. Much of this artefactual material has been published, but in catalogue form (shoes, knives, horse fittings, dress accessories, textiles, household equipment). Now the context of these finds, their deposition in groups, is laid out for the first time. Highlights of the publication include the first academic analysis and assessment of a 13th- or 14th-century trumpet from Billingsgate, the earliest surviving straight trumpet in Europe; many pilgrim souvenirs; analysis of two drains of the 17th century from which suggestions can be made about use of rooms and spaces within documented buildings; and the proposal that one of the skeletons excavated from St Botolph’s church is John Reynewell, mayor of London in 1426–7 and a notable figure in London’s medieval history.

The whole publication encourages students and other researchers of all kinds to conduct further research on any aspect of the sites and their very rich artefactual material, which is held at the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive. This is a significantly large and varied dataset for the archaeology and history of London in the period 1100 to 1666 which can be continuously interrogated for generations to come.

About the Authors
JOHN SCHOFIELD was an archaeologist at the Museum of London from 1974 to 2008. He has written several well-received books on the archaeology of London and of British medieval towns; and as Cathedral Archaeologist for St Paul’s Cathedral, archaeological accounts of the medieval and Wren buildings.

LYN BLACKMORE is a Senior Ceramics and Finds Specialist who has worked for MOLA and its predecessors since 1986. During this time she has established the Anglo-Saxon fabric type series for London, has contributed to the Type-Series of London Medieval Pottery and has published widely on aspects of post- Roman pottery. Her special research interests are the development of London and the role of local, regional and imported pottery and finds in trade and exchange. In 2009–14 she was Assistant Treasurer of the Medieval Pottery Research Group and in 2017 was elected co-editor of its journal Medieval Ceramics, a role she first held in 1989–94.

JACQUI PEARCE is a Senior Ceramics Specialist with MOLA, focusing especially on medieval and later pottery, on which she has published widely. She joined the Museum of London’s Department of Urban Archaeology in 1977 and has played a major role in the development and publication of the Type-Series of London Medieval Pottery. She has served as Joint Editor of Medieval Ceramics, as well as of Post-Medieval Archaeology and is currently Joint Editor of English Ceramic Circle Transactions. In 2017 she was elected President of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology.

TONY DYSON was the principal documentary historian and general editor at the Department of Urban Archaeology of the Museum of London from 1974 to 1998.

FORTHCOMING: Life on the Edge: The Neolithic and Bronze Age of Iain Crawford’s Udal, North Uist. Hardback; xxxii+270 pages; highly illustrated in full colour throughout. 408 2018. ISBN 9781784917708.

The discovery of archaeological structures in North Uist in 1974 after storm damage led to the identification by Iain Crawford of a kerb cairn complex, with a cist and human remains. Six years later he went back, and over the next three years excavated another cist with human remains in its kerbed cairn, many bowl pits dug into the blown sand, and down to two late Neolithic structures and a ritual complex. He intensively studied the environmental conditions affecting the site and was among the first archaeologists in Scotland to understand the climate changes taking place at the transition between late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age. The deposition of blown sand and the start of the machair in the Western Isles, including the rise in sea-level and inundations into inhabited and farmed landscapes, are all part of the complex story of natural events and human activities.

Radiocarbon dating and modern scientific analyses provide the detail of the story of periods of starvation suffered by the people that were buried on the site, of the movement away of the community, of their attempts of bringing the ‘new’ land back into cultivation, of a temporary tent-like structure, and of marking their territory by the construction of enduring monuments to the dead.

About the Editor
BEVERLEY BALLIN SMITH took up the mantle left by Iain Crawford and has brought this first monograph on his Udal project area to publication. She has extensive experience of working on, and publishing, other large multi-period sites. She is an archaeologist who lived and worked on Orkney for many years and has first-hand experience of the archaeology of Shetland, the UK, Faroes, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and is now based in Scotland. Beverley is the Publications Manager at GUARD Archaeology Ltd and editor of ARO (Archaeology Reports Online), with the aim of disseminating information to relevant audiences. She undertakes specialist analysis of prehistoric pottery and coarse stone tools. She has been a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists for nearly all her professional life; she served on the former IfA Council, was Vice Chair for Outreach, a member of the Validation Committee and was a CIfA Board director. She is a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London and also a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, where she has been Vice President. She is currently President of Archaeology Scotland and a Research Associate at National Museums Scotland.

Augustus: From Republic to Empire is the product of a conference entitled AUGUSTUS. 23 September 63 BC – 19 August 14 AD – 2000 years of divinity organised on 12 December 2014 by the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University, the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations at the Jagiellonian University and the National Museum in Krakow. The conference was hosted by the Emeryk Hutten- Czapski Museum – a branch of the National Museum in Krakow – and commemorated the anniversary of Augustus’s death.

The volume offers readers articles that deal with a variety of topics ranging from architecture, urban issues and painting to fine art represented by glyptics and numismatics. It includes papers devoted to the publication of previously unknown objects, articles presenting iconographic research, deliberations on propaganda, and analyses of the political situation and source texts. Chronologically, some of the papers go beyond the age of August, yet are relevant to the understanding of the transformations that took place in art and architecture during the reign of the first princeps, the widely-understood middle and late periods of the Republic, and the early Empire. The geographic scope of the articles covers the entire territory of the Empire. This diverse topic allows a variety of research themes on the epoch of August to be presented from a broad perspective.

In recent years an increasing worldwide awareness of the importance of water management in the ancient civilizations has generated much new discussion on water archaeology in ancient Greece.

The present volume, Great Waterworks in Roman Greece, consists the very first presentation of large scale waterworks in the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire. As a collective work, it brings together a wide body of experts from the newly emerged and expanding field of water technology and water archaeology in Roman Greece, and it fills an essential gap in archaeological research and relative bibliography regarding water management and monumental water structures in Greece during the Roman period. Among the main goals that this multi-author volume attempts to succeed is to show that great waterworks (namely aqueducts and nymphaea) not only were novelties in the Greek provinces, both in form and function, but they also changed the architectural landscape of their surrounding environments, and they introduced the concept of luxury in the urban landscapes of Roman Greece. The discussed papers deploy along a wide geographical area, covering the roman provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, Epirus, Achaia, the Aegean islands and Crete, between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD.

Collective studies such as this, not only will enlighten and promote the multifaceted significance of the archaeological remains regarding water management technology of the Roman period in the Greek regions, but they will also reveal the significant impact of the Roman technological heritage in the Greek territories.

About the Author:
Georgia Aristodemou is a Researcher of Roman Archaeology. She completed her MA and PhD studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research and publications focus on monumental architecture and the sculptural display programmes deploying on the facades of theatres and nymphaea in the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire, along with their impact and use in the formation of social, cultural and political identities in the provinces. She served in various museum projects and excavations throughout Macedonia and Thrace, especially in the region of Kavalla and the Island of Thasos. She participated at the research project for the exploration and restoration of the ancient theatre of Philippi and she is engaged with the project of studying the sculptural decoration of the monument. Since 2009, she is an academic member of the School of Humanities of the International Hellenic University (Thessaloniki, Greece), where she teaches courses on Roman Art and Archaeology of the Black Sea and the wider Eastern Mediterranean region and she coordinates the annual International Summer School on Ancient Technology. She is the author of a book on roman nymphaea and many papers on roman sculpture and architecture. She is a member of several Greek and International archaeological Societies and Associations.

Theodosios P. Tassios, Professor Emeritus of the National Technical University of Athens is an academic, civil engineer, author and writer. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Torino (IT), doctor honoris causa of Liege University (BΕ), S.E. University of Nanjing (CN), Democritos University (GR), Aristotle University (GR), Cyprus University, the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Panteion Unversity (GR). His teaching and publications extend in the areas of Soil Mechanics, Bridge Design, Dams and Tunnels, Concrete Technology and Ancient Greek Technology. He has also dealt with a wide range of scientific, technological and educational issues (European and national regulations, antiseismic protection, monument protection, public works), along with subjects of Ph

This volume presents a selection of papers and case studies first presented at a conference designed to focus on the toilets of the Northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire, taking place at Radboud University on the 1st and 2nd of May 2009. Papers demonstrate the value of scientific analysis of waste to understand the food habits and diseases of the Roman users of the toilet, while elsewhere questions on how to find the necessary expertise and financing for such investigations were raised.

It is impossible at this time to write a definitive history of toilets and toilet-use in Roman times. Much more research is needed to get a clear view of all aspects surrounding human waste removal during the Roman period. While the basics of the architectural aspects of Roman toilets are better known by now, other aspects have been only touched upon briefly. It is hoped that this conference and its proceedings volume will not be the last on this subject in the Northwestern provinces, but just a start for this interesting research topic.

This book provides a comparative study of the earliest urban civilisations of the Maya lowlands and the Greek mainland. The focus lies on the art styles of the Late Preclassic lowland Maya and Mycenaean Greece. Building on research from previous comparative studies, the approach used here seeks to combine more traditional iconographic approaches with more recent models on metaphor and the social agency of things. By comparing Maya and Mycenaean art styles through the three aspects of metaphor, semiotics and praxis, their differences and similarities are made clear. The book shows art to have played a more active role in the development of the earliest urban civilisations, rather than passively reflecting economic and political trends. In that way, the social role of art provides a key to understanding the relations between the different factors in the development of the two societies, as they played out at different temporal and geographical scales. To understand this, the notion of distinct Maya and Mycenaean ‘material worlds’, involving both materials and ideas, is proposed, with consequences for models about the earliest urban civilisations in general.

For the Gods are the opening words or incipit of the first inscribed votive artefacts dedicated to the principal deities of the Sumerian pantheon. They commemorate the construction or renovation of cities, temples, rural sanctuaries, border steles, in sum all the symbolically charged features of archaic states belonging thus metaphorically to supernatural tutelary overlords.

Girsu (present-day Tello) is one of the earliest known cities of the world together with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur, and was considered to be in the 3rd Millennium the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu who fought with the demons of the Kur (Mountain) and thus made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. Girsu was the sacred metropolis and central pole of a city-state that lay in the Southeasternmost part of the Mesopotamian floodplain.

The pioneering explorations carried out between 1877 and 1933 at Tello and the early decipherment of the Girsu cuneiform tablets were ground-breaking because they revealed the principal catalytic elements of the Sumerian takeoff – that is, a multiplicity and coalescence of major innovations, such as the appearance of a city– countryside continuum, the emergence of literacy, of bronze manufacture, and the development of monumental art and architecture.

Because of the richness of information related in particular to the city’s spatial organization and geographical setting, and thanks to the availability of recently declassified Cold War space imagery and especially the possibility to launch new explorations in Southern Iraq, Girsu stands out as a primary locale for re-analyzing through an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological and textual evidence the origins of the Sumerian city-state.

About the Author:Sébastien Rey is Lead archaeologist at the British Museum (Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Program) and Codirector of Tello-Girsu (Southern Iraq).

Northamptonshire Archaeology, now MOLA Northampton, was commissioned by Opportunity Peterborough (Peterborough City Council) to undertake archaeological work ahead of an improvement scheme centred on Cathedral Square, the historic centre of Peterborough. The construction of two triangular arrays of fountains in the central part of Cathedral Square formed the core of the archaeological investigation, which was undertaken from November 2008 to August 2011.

The archaeological work identified a succession of stone surfaces from the creation of the market square in the 12th century through to the 19th century. The cobbled surface of the original market square was overlaid by an accumulation of dark organic silts, containing finds dating through to the 16th century. At the start of the 15th century the parish church of St John the Baptist was constructed over the western half of the medieval market square with a cemetery immediately to the west of the church. Following the closure of this cemetery by the later 16th century, a small area of floor surfaces were the probable remains of a building, perhaps the Sexton’s house, at the north end of Butchers Row.

On the south side of the market square there were the remains of a rectangular stone building, dated to the late 15th to 17th centuries, perhaps containing shops. Between this building and the church, a raised area of rubble was probably a remnant of the plinth for the recorded market cross. The late 17th century saw the construction of the still extant Guildhall to the east of the church. The raising of the ground level and resurfacing of the square was probably contemporary with the Guildhall. This would have involved the removal of all existing buildings on the south side of the square, as well as the removal of the market cross.

In the late 18th or early 19th centuries the square was again raised and resurfaced, now with pitched limestone. Shallow gutters between the pavement and the road facilitated drainage. A surface of granite sets of the 19th-century survived in a few places below the late 20th-century slab pavement, which has now been replaced by the fountain development.

The indigenous persistence, texture, articulation, shape and functionality of the urban definition of the municipia in central Apulia demonstrate the nature of the complex history and settlement of this area in the long period between the age of Romanization and the third century AD. The comprehensive collection and examination of the material evidence make it possible to reconstruct – for the first time, in an organic manner and in a global framework – the profile of the urban space of ‘Poediculorum oppida’. This has been carried out according to a dynamic perspective that reveals signs of restructuring and approval, of novelty and vibrancy, of strength and interaction, to make possible the reconsideration of that stubborn idea, prevalent until recently, of an ineluctable ‘crisis’, and to draw a picture of urban geography calibrated according to an intense and morphogenetic tension in terms of the assimilation of Roman culture and adaptation to local conditions.

Hill Street, Upper Well Street and Far Gosford Street comprise three suburban streets which stood directly outside the city gates of Coventry for much of the medieval period. As a result of the 2003-2007 excavations an extensive body of archaeological, environmental and documentary evidence has been brought together to allow comparison in terms of land planning, construction methodologies, character and relative fluctuations in the long-term economy of two of the city’s medieval and post-medieval suburbs.

As well as evidence for street frontage occupation, the sites contain substantial portions of the city’s defences, never before looked at in such detail. The new data is of great value in comparing the results with those previously gained from a variety of smaller sites in Coventry and comparable sites elsewhere in the country. The work has, in some detail, married up excavated data and documentary sources for the working of the defences over a period of 250 years. In addition the immediate suburban environment has come under scrutiny and an unprecedented level of botanical data has come to light in a programme of sampling for both seeds and pollens as a guide to the changing character of the suburbs.

At Hill Street, excavation uncovered two medieval and post-medieval frontage properties 50m wide and their rear yards adjacent to the city ditch. While upstanding structural remains were scant, analysis of contemporary pits has highlighted mainly domestic but also some industrial aspects of the properties and given an insight into the diet, economy and changing face of suburban Hill Street from the 13th to 19th centuries. Excavation also uncovered some 55m of the city ditch adjacent to Bond Street, into which four large sections were cut, three close to Hill Street and one at the junction with Upper Well Street. The excavations highlight the huge investment made in digging and maintaining the ditch as a defensive line for the first half of the 15th century before it was gradually misused for fly-tipping and eventually lost beneath a welter of dumping by the later 17th century. It was probably indefensible long before the Civil War. A varied and rich environmental profile of the site has been constructed, which paints a picture of a suburban, semi-rural habitat which was increasingly spoiled in the 16th and 17th centuries by unrestricted dumping of refuse and cess. A wide variety of finds was recovered, indicative of both domestic and industrial occupation and use. This range was dominated by a large group of well-preserved late medieval leather shoes.

The Far Gosford Street excavations revealed evidence for some 800 years of human activity. The earliest remains comprised a solid timber post, possibly related to a bridge over the River Sherbourne, for which tree-ring dating established a felling date of 1162-1212. A frontage was first occupied in the early 14th century when buildings were laid out along the street. A hoard of silver pennies found buried beneath the floor of one of the buildings probably represents the savings of one of the street’s earliest residents. These structures were replaced in the first half of the 15th century, probably at the same time as the city wall was built a short distance to the west. A second medieval frontage lasted until 1643 when it was again dismantled during the Civil War. Entrenchments dating to this period were also excavated. In the 18th century a third frontage was built, replaced in the 19th century and finally demolished to make way for Singer Motors car showroom after they acquired the site in 1926.

(Excavations were carried out primarily by Northamptonshire Archaeology, now MOLA Northampton.)

The scholarship assembled in this volume was first presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Austin, Texas, in April 2014. Some of the authors have chosen to publish their conference papers while others have expanded their topics. As a collection, the papers demonstrate a myriad of approaches to understanding the history of the Puuc region, incorporating archaeological, architectural, epigraphic, and iconographic studies. The geographic scope is also broad. Many of the recent and ongoing archaeological projects in the eastern Puuc region and its periphery are represented, including Dzehkabtún, H’wasil, Kabah, Kiuic, Labná, Sayil, Uxmal, and Xcoch, as well as the Chocholá ceramic tradition from the western Puuc. The projects are at various stages—some preliminary, others a portion of a larger investigation, while still others are revisiting older data—all with the aim to advance our field of study.

It has been more than 10 years since a volume dedicated solely to the Puuc region has been published. While Puuc research frequently appears in collected volumes on the Yucatán peninsula or the Terminal Classic period, we are pleased to offer this representative example of ongoing work.

Etruscan architecture underwent various changes between the later Iron Age and the Archaic period (c. 800-500 BC), as seen in the evidence from several sites. These changes affected the design and style of domestic architecture as well as the use of raw materials and construction techniques. However, based on a supposed linear progression from inferior to superior building materials, explanations and interpretations often portray an architectural transition in Etruria from ‘prehistoric’ to ‘historic’ building types. This perspective has encouraged a rather deterministic, overly simplified and inequitable view of the causes of change in which the replacement of traditional materials with new ones is thought to have been the main factor.

This book aims to reconsider the nature of architectural changes in this period by focussing on the building materials and techniques used in the construction of domestic structures. Through a process of identification and interpretation using comparative analysis and an approach based on the chaîne opératoire perspective, changes in building materials and techniques are examined, with special reference to four key sites: San Giovenale, Acquarossa, Poggio Civitate (Murlo) and Lago dell’Accesa. It is argued that changes occurred in neither a synchronous nor a linear way, but separately and at irregular intervals. In this monograph, they are interpreted as resulting mainly from multigenerational habitual changes, reflecting the relationship between human behaviour and the built and natural environments, rather than choices between old and new materials. Moreover, despite some innovations, certain traditional building techniques and their associated materials continued into the Archaic period, indicating that Etruscan domestic architecture did not undergo a complete transformation, as sometimes asserted or implied in other works. This study of building techniques and materials, while not rejecting the widely held view of a significant Etruscan architectural transition, argues for a more nuanced reading of the evidence and greater recognition of the nature of behavioural change during the period in question.

Access Archaeology:This imprint is designed to make archaeological research accessible to all and to present a low-cost (or no-cost) publishing solution for academics from all over the world. Material ranges from theses, conference proceedings, catalogues of archaeological material, excavation reports and beyond. We provide type-setting guidance and templates for authors to prepare material themselves designed to be made available for free online via our Open Access platform and to supply in-print to libraries and academics worldwide at a reasonable price point. Click here to learn more about publishing in Access Archaeology.

More than fifteen sites of either confirmed or conjectured urban status existed between the 6th and 19th centuries in the particular region of northeastern Mesopotamia, bounded by the rivers Great Zāb, Little Zāb and Tigris. This present study concentrates on the investigation of this urban network. The archaeological substance of the deserted sites is mostly very well preserved in the relief of the arid steppe environment and can be excellently identified in satellite images of several types. The archaeological investigation of these settlements, augmented by a revised historical topography, offers a unique opportunity for the holistic study of the diversity, temporal dynamics and mutual relationships within the urban network that developed in the hinterland of Baghdad and Samarra, the two largest super-centres of the Old World.

This collective monograph puts together archaeological and historical data available for the individual sites, including analyses of pottery obtained by surface survey. The materially rich final report of the three-year project is supplemented by an interpretative chapter that focuses on detailed topographical comparisons of the sites, their landscape contexts, and the dynamics of the urban system within the framework of studies on Near-Eastern Islamic-period cities.

About the authors:Karel Nováček is associate professor of medieval archaeology in the Department of History, Palacky University Olomouc, combining in his research backgrounds in archaeology and history of architecture. Last eleven years, his field work is focussed on landscape archaeology and built environment of the Islamic period in Northern Mesopotamia

Miroslav Melčák is a research fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. He studied Arabic language and Islamic Studies at Charles University in Prague, where he obtained his PhD in 2009. His main research interests include charitable foundations (awqaf) in Syria and Egypt and Islamic urbanism of Northern Mesopotami

Lenka Starková received her PhD from the University of West Bohemia Plzeň, Department of Archaeology, where she presently works as assistant professor of the landscape archaeology. She is specialized in remote sensing, analysis of satellite imagery, airborne laser scanning and GIS

Narmin Ali Muhammad Amin is professor of archaeology at University of Salahaddin, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, and also a research fellow in CRNS Paris (UMR 8167 – Orient et Méditerranée). Her main area of research is the Islamic period and Eastern Christian monasteries in Iraqi Kurdistan

Jan Petřík graduated in 2011 from the interfaculty double-major programme combining geology with archaeology at the Masaryk University in Brno. He is currently involved in research oriented in archeometry, geoarcheology of artifacts and sites from the Neolithic period up to the 20th century

Emily Neumeier received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, presently, she hold an ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at The Ohio State University. She is a historian of Islamic art and architecture, specializing in the visual culture and built environment of the Ottoman Empire.

The work presents 230 stone carvings of the Hospitaller period in Rhodes (1309-1522), which for various reasons are no longer in their original setting. Most of them are cut in local stone or reused antique marble and belong to three broad groups: decorative architectural elements, funerary slabs and markers, and heraldry from secular and religious buildings and fortifications.

Their architectural, artistic, inscriptional and social significance are discussed, providing insights into the way cultural influences from different parts of Western Europe were introduced, maintained and adapted in an Eastern Mediterranean context by the Knights of Saint John, other Westerners the presence of the Order encouraged to travel to Rhodes and even live there and, occasionally, by wealthy Greeks. The study includes a full catalogue and touches upon recent archaeological activity in the historic centre of the town of Rhodes.

The Artuqids were one of the successor dynasties that rose to power in the aftermath of the eleventh-twelfth century invasion of Western and Central Asia by the Seljuq Turks. While the political power of the Artuqids was limited to the Diyar Bakr, a small region in northern Jazira corresponding to Southeastern Turkey, their artistic legacy is noteworthy. The many surviving Artuqid monuments, built over three hundred years (early 12th – early 15th century), and their decoration exemplify the mastery of stone carving which is reflected in intricate designs and motifs. Mardin, alongside other Artuqid centers such as Amid, Mayyafariqin and Hisn Kayfa, was set within a larger zone of diverse Christian and Islamic artistic traditions.

This book defines Mardin’s artistic context in relation to the other Artuqid centers, as well as the neighboring zones that encompass Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt. During the Artuqid period an original style developed in Mardin and the Diyar Bakr, which itself was rooted in a well-established local school of stone carving. Connected with Christian traditions found in the Syriac Tur ‘Abdin and in Late Antique Syria, the decoration also compares with that of monuments in Armenia and Georgia, and resonates with artistic practices seen in areas controlled by the regional Muslim powers of the time: the Zangids, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Great and Anatolian Seljuqs and the Ilkhanids. The Artuqid buildings reflect the spirit of the time, when the Jazira served as an artistic platform, fostering the circulation of ideas that led to new inspiration, and open-minded rulers and patrons, curious and receptive to new creations, stimulated the creative efforts of architects, stone carvers and craftsmen. The decorated monuments also attest to the existence of significant economic wealth and the need to commission sophisticated buildings that magnified the political and social status of the ruling elite’s.

Although there have been numerous studies of individual cities or groups of cities, there has never been a study of the urbanism of the Roman world as a whole, meaning that we have been poorly informed not only about the number of cities and how they were distributed and changed over time, but also about their sizes and populations, monumentality, and civic status. This book provides a new account of the urbanism of the Roman world between 100 BC and AD 300. To do so, it draws on a combination of textual sources and archaeological material to provide a new catalogue of cities, calculates new estimates of their areas and uses a range of population densities to estimate their populations, and brings together available information about their monumentality and civic status for the first time. This evidence demonstrates that, although there were relatively few cities, many had considerable sizes and populations, substantial amounts of monumentality, and held various kinds of civic status. This indicates that there was significant economic growth in this period, including both extensive and intensive economic growth, which resulted from an influx of wealth through conquest and the intrinsic changes that came with Roman rule (including the expansion of urbanism). This evidence also suggests that there was a system that was characterized by areas of intense urban demand, which was met through an efficient system for the extraction of necessity and luxury goods from immediate hinterlands and an effective system for bringing these items from further afield. The disruption of these links seems to have put this system under considerable strain towards the end of this period and may have been sufficient to cause its ultimate collapse. This appears to have been in marked contrast to the medieval and early modern periods, when urbanism was more able to respond to changes in supply and demand.

About the author:J. W. Hanson is a historian and archaeologist specialising in the urbanism and economy of the Greek and Roman world. He holds a B.A. in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History from the University of Oxford, as well as an M.St. in Classical Archaeology and a D.Phil in Archaeology from the same institution. He is now a Research Associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, working for the Social Reactors project.

The iconic eighteenth-century architect Robert Adam was based in London for more than half of his life and made more designs for this one city than anywhere else in the world. This book reviews a wide variety of his designs for London, highlighting lesser-known buildings as well as familiar ones. Each of Adam’s projects explored in this book is plotted on Horwood’s map of London (1792-99), enabling the reader to recognise Adam’s work as they move around the city, as well as to envisage London as if more of his ingenious designs had been executed or survived demolition.

About the Author:Dr Frances Sands is Curator of Drawings and Books at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

This book examines different forms of ritual activities performed in houses of Graeco- Roman Egypt. It draws on the rich archaeological record of rural housing and evidence from literature or papyrological references to both urban and rural housing. The introduction critically considers the literature relevant to the topic in order to identify the research gap. Chapter I attempts to reconstruct the structure of urban and rural houses in Graeco- Roman Egypt in the light of papyri and archaeology. This aims to establish the physical and spatial framework for the rituals considered in the following chapters. In line with this reconstruction of domestic properties is the reconstruction of the architectural layout and use of the domestic pylon in Chapter II. Chapter III deals with two rituals enacted before the front door of the house, namely the sacrifice of fish on the 9th of Thoth and the sacrifice of pigs on the 15th of Pachon. Chapter IV considers the ritual of the illumination of lamps for the goddess Athena-Neith within and around houses on the 13th of Epeiph. Chapter V highlights the use of the house as an arena for social types of rituals associated with dining, birthdays, the mallokouria, the epikrisis, and marriage. Chapter VI explores the religious sphere of houses, which is obvious from domestic shrines, wall paintings with religious themes, and figurines of Egyptian and Graeco-Roman deities uncovered from houses. The last chapter deals with mourning rituals, which the house occupants performed after the demise of their beloved animals, such as dogs, and their family members. In the conclusion, I summarize my work and draw out its implications, suggesting that the house was the locus of social, religious, and funerary rituals in Graeco-Roman Egypt.

Ancient aqueducts have long commanded the attention of archaeologists, both for their intrinsic, monumental importance and for their significance as infrastructures closely related to the concept of civilisation. An aqueduct, in fact, is an artefact that has a great potential for providing information concerning at least two major aspects of ancient society: those relating to structural, technical, and engineering matters, and those relating to building and construction technology. These topics have enjoyed considerable attention in past studies, and in recent years they have also been integrated with a multi-disciplinary and contextual approach. They have further increased the potential of the analysis of ancient hydraulic systems, turning them into historical subjects capable of expanding our knowledge of the urban and social transformation of ancient cities and their territories.

The current study of the early Byzantine aqueduct of Gortyn (Crete) follows this tradition, but starts from a viewpoint related not so much to the aqueduct itself, as to a series of questions about the city: what was the appearance of Gortyn in the early Byzantine era? How did the inhabitants live? Where did they live and what did they do for living?

The aqueduct was born with the Roman city and accompanied it for its entire lifetime, constituting the backbone around which the various forms of urban settlement were redrawn at each major historical stage. Its vital link with everyday life makes the aqueduct a key witness for the study of the transformations of the city over the long term.

Access Archaeology:This imprint is designed to make archaeological research accessible to all and to present a low-cost (or no-cost) publishing solution for academics from all over the world. Material ranges from theses, conference proceedings, catalogues of archaeological material, excavation reports and beyond. We provide type-setting guidance and templates for authors to prepare material themselves designed to be made available for free online via our Open Access platform and to supply in-print to libraries and academics worldwide at a reasonable price point. Click here to learn more about publishing in Access Archaeology.

The Archaeology and History of the Church of the Redeemer and the Muristan in JerusalemA Collection of Essays from a Workshop on the Church of the Redeemer and its Vicinity held on 8th/9th September 2014 in Jerusalem edited by Dieter Vieweger and Shimon Gibson. 322 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white. 266 2016. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784914196. £45.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784914202. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £45.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

The Muristan is situated in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem and was a prime property in medieval times with numerous churches, a hospice, and a large hospital complex. This monograph contains fifteen chapters written by leading scholars from around the world dealing with the archaeological and historical aspects of the Muristan from the Iron Age through to Ottoman times. A number of chapters also address its immediate urban surroundings, notably the complex of structures associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the north and the Church of St John the Baptist to the south-west. Key chapters in this monograph are dedicated to the history of the Church of the Redeemer and on its underlying archaeological remains. Many of the chapters are based on research that was originally presented at an international workshop held in Jerusalem in 2014.

About the Editors:Dieter Vieweger (born 1958) is the managing Director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem and Amman (www.deiahl.de), Professor at the Church University of Wuppertal, Director of the Biblical Archaeological Institute at Wuppertal (www.bainst.de), Visiting Professor at the Private University of Witten-Herdecke, and Director of a number of archaeological research projects conducted in Jordan, Israel and Palestine (www.tallziraa.de; www.durch-die-zeiten.info).

Shimon Gibson (born 1958) is a Visiting Professor of Archaeology in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and is the Head of the Archaeology Department in the University of the Holy Land, Jerusalem. His academic interests include the Archaeology of the Holy Land, History of Photography, and Jerusalem. He has many publications to his name, and directs archaeological projects (www.digtmountzion.com).

The Development of Domestic Space in the Maltese Islands from the Late Middle Ages to the Second Half of the Twentieth Century by George A. Said-Zammit. xviii+368; illustrated throughout with 132 colour plates. 258 2016. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784913915. £65.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784913922. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £65.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This study traces and analyses the evolution of domestic space in Maltese vernacular and ‘polite’ houses from medieval to contemporary times. The houses under review range from humble buildings of modest size, materials and design, like farmhouses or those for the less affluent towndwellers, to buildings of grand design, like townhouses and palazzi. Owing to the complex nature of the Maltese houses a combination of enquires and a variety of sources was necessary to achieve a holistic picture. This included fieldwork in different parts of the islands, extensive research work in local archives, libraries and museums, an analysis of a sample of literary sources, national censuses and works-of-art, as well as methods of spatial analysis (Space Syntax).

One of the major achievements obtained in this research concerns the development of the native dwelling. The field surveys and archival research have demonstrated that the evolution of the native dwelling was very much influenced by the political, social and economic changes that occurred locally during the period under review. In particular, it was observed that architectural and stylistic changes in the elite houses occurred at a faster rate to suit fashion, in line with what occurred in other European countries, while changes in peasant houses were slower and more sporadic as these adhered to their vernacular idiom for a longer time.

Houses often served as a symbol of class and social status. The dwelling’s size and architectural style, the configuration of domestic space as well as the house furniture and contents were among the main indicators which, between the late Medieval Period and the first half of the 20th century, distinguished a wealthy from a poor dwelling. Class distinction did not occur only between houses, but also within the same building, especially in the elite dwellings. Gender was also another important aspect which directly affected the upper middle and elite Maltese houses, particularly at a time when men and women had fixed roles in society. However, the restricted space by which the lower class houses were normally characterized permitted instead the mixing of genders in work and leisure. A major shift in the relationship between the family and the house occurred in the second half of the 20th century, when the social and demographic changes of this period brought more balance between the social classes.

Through the available evidence, particularly the national censuses, works-of-art, literary sources and travelogues, it was also possible to acquire knowledge about various aspects related to dining fashions, dress code, health and education in the Maltese houses. The results obtained from our Space Syntax investigations have been instrumental to acquire new knowledge and to understand better the social logic of space underpinning Maltese dwellings and settlements.

For the Gods are the opening words or incipit of the first inscribed votive artefacts dedicated to the principal deities of the Sumerian pantheon. They commemorate the construction or renovation of cities, temples, rural sanctuaries, border steles, in sum all the symbolically charged features of archaic states belonging thus metaphorically to supernatural tutelary overlords.

Girsu (present-day Tello) is one of the earliest known cities of the world together with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur, and was considered to be in the 3rd Millennium the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu who fought with the demons of the Kur (Mountain) and thus made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. Girsu was the sacred metropolis and central pole of a city-state that lay in the Southeasternmost part of the Mesopotamian floodplain.

The pioneering explorations carried out between 1877 and 1933 at Tello and the early decipherment of the Girsu cuneiform tablets were ground-breaking because they revealed the principal catalytic elements of the Sumerian takeoff – that is, a multiplicity and coalescence of major innovations, such as the appearance of a city– countryside continuum, the emergence of literacy, of bronze manufacture, and the development of monumental art and architecture.

Because of the richness of information related in particular to the city’s spatial organization and geographical setting, and thanks to the availability of recently declassified Cold War space imagery and especially the possibility to launch new explorations in Southern Iraq, Girsu stands out as a primary locale for re-analyzing through an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological and textual evidence the origins of the Sumerian city-state.

About the Author:Sébastien Rey is Lead archaeologist at the British Museum (Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Program) and Codirector of Tello-Girsu (Southern Iraq).

This book is an essay on architectural drawings of the Greek and Roman world. The first chapter is focused on the possibility that ancient treatises of architectures were endowed with drawings in order to make clear expositions which sometimes were not easily explainable only with words. Then the drawings which once clarified the treatise of Vitruvius are considered. The problem concerning the possible presence of drawings in post-Vitruvian architectural treatises is also discussed. The issue as to whether descriptive literary compositions sometimes contained illustrations as well is also examined. Then representations of architecture in Roman treatises on divisions of land (the so called gromatic treatises) are considered. The references to architectural drawings in literary and epigraphical testimonia are collected and a catalogue of the surviving Greek and Roman drawings of buildings or of parts of them is given. Thus this research offers all the basic data for the study of an important tool in the context of architecture in antiquity.

The qṣar corresponds to a type of human settlement widely distributed in the Sahara desert, including many examples located today in southern Morocco, southern Algeria, southern Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Mali. This architectural model is characterised by its use over a wide-ranging time span – probably since the early first millennium BC according to ancient structures recorded by the archaeologist Mattingly in the Libyan Fazzān.

This volume, through the systematic analysis and comparison of some qṣūr of southeastern Algeria (Rīġ, Mzāb, Miya and al-Manī‘a), reveals common architectural features that can be used to identify a common type of qṣar in this region. The analysis of the construction material shows the primary use of limestone with a local mortar (timchent) and date palm trunks (phoenix dactylifera) for the structural elements (ceilings, doors, arcs, domes). Adobe bricks (ṭūb) are used in the housing and the defence systems punctuated by towers and pierced doors.

Despite a discontinuity within the historical narrative, the establishment of populations in this area of the Sahara appears to be much earlier than the medieval period and the qṣar is certainly not a creation ex nihilo of the modern era. Because of their numerous modifications and extensions over several centuries, the qṣūr problematise the dating of such settlements. However, the comparison of its main components encourages the development of a typology to identify some common characteristics that would help position the qṣar among the urban planning of the dār al-islām.

The island of Sant’ Andrea, situated on the road that since ancient times has linked the Adige Valley with the Lake Garda, once rose impressively from the green expanse of water, but now is a small hump on the edge of a vast marshy basin. Fifteen centuries ago it was the fortified seat of a contingent of soldiers and their families. In 1998, after a long series of sporadic discoveries that started way back in the 19th century, the Archeaology Section of the Rovereto Civic Museum began a research and study project that involved a series of summer excavations, that brought to light a multi-layered archeological site with finds ranging from the prehistoric age to late antiquity, medieval times and right through to even the First World War. Along the northeastern side and the southern edge of the island the remains have been found of some buildings that can be traced to a fortified settlement and on the top part of the hump the remains of a Romanesque church have been investigated. The buildings that made up the settlement illustrate a complex series of construction periods; so far these have been dated between the 5th and 7th centuries. Numerous examples of armoury and military clothing have been found in the settlement area and this clearly suggests the military function of the site. The volume is devoted to the results of the research in the castrum: A general overview of the site is followed by a part devoted to periodization and stratigraphic analysis of the dig; then there is a large section that includes contributions on the small finds; the fourth part contains some concluding remarks.

About the Author:Barbara Maurina is Archaeological Conservator at the Foundation Museo Civico di Rovereto. After she graduated at the University of Trento, she attended post-degree courses at the Institute of Archaeology of the University College London; afterwards she got an advanced degree at the University of Trieste and a PhD at the University of Siena. She has been collaborator of different Universities, Museums and Institutes, e.g. École Française de Rome, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, University of Trento, University of Würzburg, University of Arizona, Soprintendenza Archeologica del Lazio, Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma. From 1988 she takes part in archaeological campaigns in Italy and abroad; in 1998 she began the excavation in the site of Loppio-St. Andrea, that still directs today.

Athens from 1920 to 1940A true and just account of how History was enveloped by a modern City and the Place became an Event by Dimitris N. Karidis. viii+194 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white. 224 2016. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784913113. £34.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784913120. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £34.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

During the short interwar period of the early 20th century, Athens entered into a process of meteoric urban transformation which gave her a unique place among European capital cities of the time. The implementation of a settlement programme for hundreds of thousands of refugees, following the 1922 Smyrna catastrophe, effected social and economic metamorphoses, which, in their early steps, were not devoid of patterns of social and spatial segregation. During the 1930s, notwithstanding manifold adversities, the capital city encountered modernity, but she did so on her own terms. On the ideological level, the place acquired a world-wide reputation for two reasons. First, by the ambitious venture of unearthing antiquities in the ancient agora and revealing the glory of ancient Greece, even if a whole neighbourhood standing on the spot, which for centuries had teemed with social exchange and commercial transactions, had to be erased for that purpose. Second, by imprinting her name on the ‘Charter of Athens’, the document concluding the results of the 4th Congress of Modern Architecture which she hosted, intrinsically linking her with the avant-garde architectural theory and practice of the time. Furthermore, state/governmental involvement in the production of the built environment, occasionally supporting the private sector and landowners in particular in their speculative intentions, provided Athens with the infrastructure she demanded for exercising her role as the capital city of Greece. The Marathon Dam, the underground railway, the steam-powered electric plants, and many other projects, implied advances through which the average man and woman in the street could rejoice that modernization had taken deep roots within Athenian daily life. Yet, it seems Athens walked alongside modernism not within it. Very much like Narcissus, the handsome young man from Boeotia, it might be that Athens looked at her beautiful face mirrored as if in the still water of a lake; overwhelmed by a strong feeling of exaltation and delight, she stood there until she died.

About the Author:Dimitris N. Karidis is an architect and urban historian, Professor Emeritus/National Technical University in Greece.

The central theme The Ubaldini and the City is the classic confrontation between feudal society and a resurgent urban form as the central instrument of organisation of European society, which is crucial to the origins of Europe as we know it today. The analysis starts from a reconstruction of the historical role played by the Ubaldini on the basis of a critical reconsideration of the available documentary evidence, and the results appear to be perfectly consistent with the general pattern for the Florentine aristocracy. The theme is one of ‘boundaries’: between historical and archaeological evidence, between the late Middle Ages and the birth of modernity; it concerns space with the establishment of new ‘borders’ which evolve from Terra Nuova and become completely territorial. The book takes as its subject a turning point in the history of the late Middle Ages on the threshold of the modern world: the crisis and collapse of the traditional feudal and rural world and the emergence of new territorial states based on the cities.

The remarkable preservation of the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola on the Campania Plain of Southern Italy is unmatched in Europe. The site was buried under nearly a meter of volcanic ash deposited by the Avellino eruption of Vesuvius ca. 3945+10 cal. BP. The site boasts a large number of well-preserved structures, built features and organic materials and thus provides a laboratory-type setting in which to investigate variability in artifact distribution and activity areas across a single village. This research utilizes micromorphological analysis of thin sections of undisturbed sediment collected at the site to understand how people used living spaces, organized daily activities and, when possible, to connect village life to broad issues related to the emergence of social complexity on the Campanian Plain. In particular, micromorphology is used to identify the type and range of human activities, the function of features and buildings, and the intensity of site occupation. The micromorphological analysis at Afragola provides a unique example of a briefly occupied agricultural village with what appears to be minimally stratified social organization during the Early Bronze Age of southern Italy.

Crude Hints towards an History of my House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by by Sir John Soane with an introduction by Helen Dorey. 60pp; illustrated throughout in colour and black & white. 184 2015. ISBN 9781784912154. £15.00 (No VAT).

In 1812 the architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) wrote a strange and perplexing manuscript, Crude Hints towards an History of my House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in which, in the guise of an Antiquary, he imagines his home as a future ruin, inspected by visitors speculating on its origins and function.

Never published in his lifetime, the manuscript has been meticulously transcribed and provided with an explanatory Introduction and footnotes by Helen Dorey, Deputy Director and Inspectress of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Originally published as part of an exhibition catalogue sixteen years ago, this new edition has been extensively revised and updated. The text is accompanied by nineteen illustrations, seventeen of them in full colour.

About the Author:Sir John Soane (1753 – 1837) was one of the most inventive architects of his time. He built the Bank of England and Dulwich Picture Gallery, as well as his own extraordinary home by buying, demolishing and rebuilding three houses in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. First, in 1792, he bought number 12 – pleased, perhaps, with its proximity to the Royal Academy, then at Somerset House, and the coaching inns on High Holborn. This was to be his home, office, and a space for his collections. He created a distinctive façade in white Norfolk brick – a material which would have stood out on the street. And at the back of the house, he built a two-storey architectural office. Then in 1807, Soane bought number 13 in order to acquire its stable block. He rebuilt the stables into a new office and museum space, which he filled with plaster casts and Roman marbles. Soane continued to acquire objects and display them, but instead of categorising objects, he decided to show his collection in creative, eclectic ways instead. In 1812, Soane’s unusual collection had taken over the space once occupied by the stables at the back of number 13. He needed more room, so he acquired the rest of the house and moved in. He rebuilt the front part, connecting it to the back, giving him plenty of new space to display his collection. Soane now opened up the house to his students, hoping to aid their studies with his collection. Magazines began referring to the house as ‘an Academy of Architecture’. Soane’s collection grew futher. He ended up with some spectacular items – like the sarcophagus of the Egyptian king, Seti I. He was constantly arranging and rearranging these objects throughout his life, not just to incorporate new acquisitions, but to enhance their poetic qualities through inspiring juxtapositions. The organisation of the museum can seem chaotic. It is, in fact, quite purposeful – each room a work of art in its own right. In 1824, Soane acquired and rebuilt number 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The front part was a separate house which was rented out. The stables and courtyard at the back were demolished, became part of his as the Picture Room. In 1833, he negotiated an Act of Parliament: to preserve his house and collection, exactly as it would be at the time of his death – and to keep it open and free for inspiration and education. Four years later, Soane died. A board of trustees took on the responsibility of upholding Soane’s wishes – as they continue to do to this day.